The majority of people today would have no trouble pointing out the obvious – who invented the touch screen monitor? The answer is a resounding yes. Some may claim that it was Charles Mandiberg, the inventor of the early computer, but this is highly unlikely. At the time, he was working for the army and would not be seen in public without his gun in tow. There is no way he could have slipped into a booth at an electronics fair and set up shop to demonstrate something that was cutting edge at the time.

So, who invented the touch screen monitor? There are many theories out there, but there is only one true creator – someone who actually worked with this device. And this person is Charles Mandiberg. He was a brilliant electrical engineer who went on to create many other innovative devices. These were mostly for the military, but his touch screen concept hit the big time with the medical profession.

Before touching down on a soap opera, let’s go back to our beginning point – who invented the touch screen monitor? After all, this was something that had already been in use for quite some time, so there had to be a person who had come up with the idea. So, who created the idea? There are several candidates. One name that comes to mind is Robert keys.

The first touch screen monitor was invented by Keys & Associates. They created the Krome Mouse, which is a monitor that has a track going down the middle of the touch-sensitive surface. You place your finger on the center of the mouse and use your thumb, index, and middle fingers to scroll up and down the track. When you want to move your finger to the right, you push your thumb down and then push your index finger in order to move up. When you want to move your finger to the left, you push your index finger and your thumb at the same time. As you can see, this is not too difficult to understand.

However, the problem with this type of monitor is that it tended to get garbled when the keyboard was touched accidentally. So, the Krome Mouse was phased out in favor of the mouse that we know today. The Xerox Company, however, saw a need for a more stable type of mouse, and they answered the call by creating the touch screen computer mouse. While it still had a physical track going down the side, it was grooved in such a way that you could scroll using your fingers to work the mouse wheel. This was the standard for the computer mouse for years, but as touch screen technology became more commonplace, the computer mouse lost some of its fervency.

So, who invented the touch screen? It may be a question that will remain unanswered for quite some time, as the various companies that were working on touch screen technology kept on developing different types of monitors. It may also turn out that there were several different ways that the screen was used, but it is pretty safe to say that the Krome Mouse really pioneered the use of touch screen technology. Now, the screen is simply referred to as the touch screen, even though there are now many touching screen monitors out there.